Cave paintings were an ancient zodiac mapping the skies, say experts

Europe's earliest known cave paintings were an ancient zodiac mapping the skies, experts have claimed.

New research suggests humans had a sophisticated knowledge of the stars as long as 40,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

And researchers at the universities of Edinburgh and Kent believe the positions of the paintings show they could even keep track of time and the changing seasons by watching how stars slowly move in the sky as the year progresses.

The phenomenon, known as precession of the equinoxes, is caused by the gradual shift of Earth's rotational axis. Its discovery was previously credited to the ancient Greeks.

Researchers used software to recreate the night sky as it appeared thousands of years ago to map cave paintings to the position of stars in the heaven. They believe the drawings were often placed to mark major events, such as comet strikes.

Study leader Dr Martin Sweatman, from the University of Edinburgh, said: “Early cave art shows that people had advanced knowledge of the night sky within the last ice age. Intellectually, they were hardly any different to us today.

“It will probably revolutionise how prehistoric populations are seen.”

Researchers studied details of Palaeolithic and Neolithic cave art sites in Turkey, Spain, France and Germany.

Animal symbol pictures daubed on the walls of the caves were aged by chemically dating the paints and compared it to the ancient skies.

The results showed that what looked like abstract depictions of animals could be interpreted as zodiac signs based on constellations as they appeared at the time.

The team decoded the well-known Shaft Scene from Lascaux in France, dating from 17,300 years ago, which depicts a prostate man with a bird’s head, alongside a bison, with a duck and rhino nearby.

Although it was once thought to represent a hunting or shamanic scene, the researchers now believe it shows the constellations of Capricorn during the summer solstice, Libra during the spring equinox and Taurus at the autumn equinox.

A nearby picture of a horse represents Leo in the winter solstice, according to researchers.

Writing in Athens Journal of History, the researchers described how an ancient carved stone pillar from Gobekli Tepe in Turkey provided them with their "Rosetta Stone" - the key to unlocking the zodiac code.

It was thought to commemorate a devastating meteor impact in North America 11,000 years ago that led to the Younger Dryas Event, a period of sudden climate cooling that triggered a mini-ice age across the northern hemisphere.

The authors wrote: "The date carved into the Vulture Stone is interpreted to be 10,950 BC, to within 250 years. This date is written using precession of the equinoxes, with animal symbols representing star constellations corresponding to the four solstices and equinoxes of this year."

The world's oldest sculpture, the Lion Man of Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in Germany, an ivory carving almost 40,000 years old, was also found to support the zodiac symbol theory.

The work features a dying man and several animals. It may commemorate another comet strike around 15,200 BC, the researchers suggest.